jimny wobble YET AGAIN

hi ive just lifted the jimny with a kap 3" lift pro comp es3000s , adjustable panhards front and rear , a front steering damper , ive also just had a full wheel alignment and needed 4 new track rod ends , now it drives lovely but on a bypass near us driving at 55 mph the steering wheel wobbles very very slightly i can cope with that but when i come to brake it wobbles that bad again i have to stop to stop it , this is really getting me down now and if its not sorted soon im going to cut my losses and sell the thing .
do you think it could be the wheels and tyres they are vitara offsett wheels and stick out a bit further than normal , ive got 215 75 15 ats on it , i think the front panhard might need adjusting slightly as the wheel on the passenger side sticks out a little further , any help on this would be great or maybe somone near me to have a look for me im really stumped

The usual suspects would be the kingpin bearings or wheel bearings on the front. What have you replaced if anything so far in this respect? If you've changed the Kingpin bearings, did you shim the kingpin bearings correctly ensuring that they drag on the steering arm is right with a spring balance?

It can't be warped brake disks as it would stop when you take your foot off the pedal.

It won't be the wheels offset or a balancing issue either, or it would get better as you slow, not worse.

I'm guessing you have freewheeling hubs so a bent halfshaft shouldn't be causing it as they won't be spinning.

So my thoughts remain with the kingpin and or wheel bearings.

You should be able to feel play in them when jacking the car up and rocking the wheel with a hand on top and bottom of the wheel if it is either. Perhaps get the steering lock to come on to reduce the play in the steering from diluting any play.

If in doubt, don't give up on it, take it to a decent independant garage and have them look at it, preferably one that has knowledge on off roaders. Do you belong to a club where another member has a garage. They are the sorts of minds to tap into when encountering problems like this and not necessarily the dealer or a big name garage who employs technicialns rather than good olf fashioned mechanics - not that there's anything wrong with being a technician - but the title mechanic on an older person gives the impression that they have more experience to draw from.

I'm wafffling as usual now...

Kirkynut

Looking at the past threads on this you have not looked at the wheel bearings.

As you will see from the main website, I have just had a very severe wobble and it turned out to be a wheel bearing that showed none of the normal symptoms. They are dual race wheel bearings and one race had failed and the other was still perfect meaning that it seemed ok from the outside.

martin

ive replaced both sets of kingpins , the shaft seals , new adjustable panhards , 4 new track rod ends , ive swapped the tyres for the ones on the back , i havent done the wheel bearings as there was no play in them??
and what do you mean as.....did you shim the kingpin bearings correctly ensuring that they drag on the steering arm is right with a spring balance?

It sounds like a wheel bearing as Martin says, however, what I mean by making sure the kingpin bearings are shimmed right using a spring balance is:

The bearings and conical shaped and the harder they are pushed down on, the harder they will press into the streering knuckle. If they press too hard into it the steering will be hard to tuen and there will be undue wear on the bearings. If they do not press down hard enough there will be play and you could get a wobble as you describe.

So what you do if they are pressing down too hard is to put shims on the kingpins to raise them away from the bearing so that thye don't push on it so hard when you bolt it all up. Whatever shim you put on the top you must put on the bottom for equal pressure on the bearings.

A spring balance is a tool that measures the amount of effort needed to pull the steering knuckle round without the steering connected to the ball joint.

A manual will tell you how much pull there should be. Not enough effort needed means they are too loose and the bearing need replacing and too much effort against the spring balance means they are too tight and need shimming to loosen them off a little.

It is then a case of trial and error until they are shimmed within the tolerances that the manual states.

I don't have my CD manual to hand but get one yourself off ebay and it will give you all the stats. It is similar to an SJ in theory, so getting a Haynes manual for that vehicle would assist in some respects.

I imagine though that if you replaced the King Pin bearing they are unlikely to be loose, unless they were tight and were too tight and have been damaged due to that.

Hope this helps.

Kirkynut

I am not sure you are right about the shimming of the Kingpins. You certainly had to do it on the SJs but I dont think you do it on the Jimnys.

Martin